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THE HUNTING STABILITY AND CURVING ABILITY OF RAILWAY VEHICLES

A novel railway suspension system using the principle of diagonal wheelset guidance in place of the parallel guidance commonly employed has been described in principle for two and three axle bogies (vehicles) and analyzed for curving ability and hunting stability of wheelset and body oscillations, and critical hunting speeds have been determined. It has been shown that body instabilities can be controlled by the use of pseudo-slip damping and/or body suspension damping while wheelset stability can be maintained up to very high operating speeds without any real impairment of the steering ability of the standard rigid railway wheelset having conical or profiled wheel treads. For profiled wheels the ratio between lateral gravitational suspension stiffness and longitudinal suspension stiffness which ensures optimum steering on curved track has been derived.